Young People’s View of the Conflict

At the age of 15, Elina was one of the participants of the Kids’ Crossroads regional project. During two years she was writing scripts, was participating in shooting and editing, was working with her Azerbaijani and Georgian peers, and was one of the anchors of Menk Enk TV program. Then she chose the journalist’s profession. When student, Elina participated in Internews’ Workshop on the Crossroads project and produced a film with her Azerbaijani partner.

At the age of 23, Elina already worked on a more professional level: in Hello, Belgium film she presented young people’s view of the Belgian conflict. Hello, Belgium is among the series of documentary films entitled World of Conflicts, which highlights the origin and development of various conflicts in the world, human tragedies and state interests, historical lessons and possible solutions.

While shooting the film, Elina Chilingaryan visited Brussels, Bruges, Lier, Linkebeek, Leuven and Antwerp. She spoke with tens of young people revealing linguistic, cultural and household peculiarities of the conflict between French and Flemish speaking people, as well as young people’s lives, motivations and opinions on the conflict.

“While communicating with Belgian young people, I realized that their aspiration for patience, kindness, tolerance and dialogue is the most important,” Elina says. “I can hardly tell the viewers what is the film about. Overall, it is the screen version of a math problem with the solution. I presented the data and composites through shots. However, the Belgian mathematics still avoids traditional solutions.”

On February 26, the presentation of Hello Belgium was held in Internews. Filmmakers and young people, who attended the event, expressed various opinions on the author’s approach, depth of the phenomena presented, the general mood of the film and other issues. Within the next few weeks the film will be broadcast by Armenian TV companies.